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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25488781">Corpus Et Animus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fAkE_oRaNgE/pseuds/fAkE_oRaNgE'>fAkE_oRaNgE</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Depression, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Beta Read, Romance, Sad, Terminal Illnesses, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25488781</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fAkE_oRaNgE/pseuds/fAkE_oRaNgE</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kisame liked to believe that he had known Itachi completly, body and soul, till the day he died.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hoshigaki Kisame/Uchiha Itachi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Itachi had once watched a documentary about hunting when he was young. One of the men talked about how he felt like right before the kill, the look of the animal, right before it died. The way it’s eyes would be dull and empty, like it knew what was going to happen and was just waiting for it. He had almost completely forgotten about it, until he experienced it himself.<br/>
How Shisui’s eyes looked like two black holes, threatening to suck Itachi in, right before he shot him.<br/>
Now it seemed like he would never be able to forget it ever again.</p>
<p>That was three months ago. </p>
<p>The bed he slept on was bigger than his old one, too much unused space he wasn’t able to fill with his still rather small body. The bedsheets were itchy and smelled foreign, the walls around him a fated white, a cold color. His bedside table was a small square, on it a simple lamp and a drawer he didn’t use. Itachi had tried to spread his belongings as far as possible into the corner of the room, leaving a huge wide space between his side and the one of his ‘roommate’. The organization had distributed all the members into pairs, with each one getting their own room and bathroom. He had secretly hoped he would be able to work alone to avoid any conflict, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case now.<br/>
Kisame, as he had learned was his new partner’s name, was not what Itachi had expected in the beginning. For starters, he was surprisingly cooperative, when everything else about him appeared to be overbearing. His side of the wall was decorated with marine biology, old swim Olympics and movie posters, a medium seized wooden carving that (through a quick google search) Itachi found out represented an ancient Hawaiian god. It was hard to believe this decoration belonged to a rather high-class criminal instead of a regular junior in college. Then Kisame himself was, even though his height and broad shoulders were quite striking, very calm. He didn’t talk too much and mostly stopped all together when he realized Itachi wasn’t going to participate in the conversation. He didn’t ask personal questions and didn’t interfere in Itachi’s private space.<br/>
Pain, the one who had been explaining things to him up until now, had explained they wanted to wait a few months before sending him of to missions, so his personal situation would come down. However, Itachi itched to do something and not sit around in his room all day, plagued by a never ending headache and nightmares. Their first assignment was fairly welcomed. It was a simple elimination of an upcoming political candidate in Seattle, but to make sure the message would gain enough attention they decided to take care of the rest of the family as well.<br/>
The scenario seemed shockingly familiar, the house a classic family home with a colorful painted children’s bedroom and a big dining table. Framed pictures hanging on the walls from holidays, graduation and bigger family gatherings. The silencer felt heavy in his hand, the still fresh memory of it’s intentional use coming to mind and Itachi shook the thoughts out of his head as fast as he could. It happened quickly, no louder sound than their breathing in the room. Kisame made sure the alarm wouldn’t come of and laid the spray template on the bedroom wall to leave the Akatsuki symbol there. The red cloud stared back at Itachi, reminding him of the same tattoo resting on his hipbone. This was what he stood for now, this was what he chose.<br/>
He had expected the car ride back to be just as quiet as the one before, but to his surprise Kisame actually started talking.<br/>
“You don’t have a driver’s license yet right?”<br/>
Itachi nodded, keeping the frustration about it to himself, he would much rather be the one driving to control the speed.<br/>
“Man, kinda hard to believe you’re still just a kid.”<br/>
“You’re barely 21, which  doesn’t make you that much older either.”<br/>
Kisame furrowed his brow and looked at him confused, his mouth not being able to decide if it wanted to smile or not.<br/>
“I don’t think I remember telling you that.”<br/>
“You didn’t. I read your file.”<br/>
“My police file?” His voice dripped with amusement.<br/>
“Yes.”<br/>
Kisame reached out and turned on the radio, switching between channels before he let some sort of country song play faintly in the background. His hands were almost terrifyingly large, even in comparison to Itachi’s, which his mother had always called ‘piano hands’. Next to his own hand, resting on his thigh, the contrast was blinding. Kisame’s skin was quite dark, with a healthy shade of red, which indicated that there was indeed flesh and blood underneath it, unlike with Itachi’s. His hand was pale, bone’s sticking out and his nails brittle.<br/>
“Are you hungry?”<br/>
“No,” Itachi hadn’t been hungry since exactly three months, six days, two hours and 27 minutes.<br/>
“Let’s grab a bite to eat before we head back.”<br/>
He pulled into the parking lot of a classic mid-west diner placed at the side of the road next to a gas station.<br/>
“We shouldn’t be in public so open, we could be recognized.”<br/>
“I’m already doing this a lil longer than you are, trust me, it’s no biggie.”<br/>
Sitting across his partner on a fake leather booth that had already seen better days, Itachi realized he had almost forgotten what it was like to go outside like a normal person. There weren’t a lot of people in the diner, the weather probably not very suitably for a vacation. The smell of cheap coffee reached his nose once the waitress filled both their cups. He wasn’t going to drink it, but the hand around his cup warmed up, a welcoming feeling in this cold.<br/>
The collar of Kisame’s big puffy jacket, a darker navy blue, reached up to his ear if he pulled it up. The blue matched his dyed hair, messily and tousled sitting on top of his head. His eyes however, small and not very striking at first glance, were an incredible pale blue, almost frightening.<br/>
“Our faces were in the news, we could easily be recognized.”<br/>
Kisame smirked, a small dimple forming in one of the apple of his cheeks, an almost innocent trait for his otherwise intimidating facial features.<br/>
“People only see what they want to see.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Most of the age's are changed, for once the age difference between Kisame and Itachi isn't as drastic as in the Anime. Also, Itachi is the last to join Akatsuki and also the youngest.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first year, to Itachi’s surprise, passed quickly. He fell into routine with going every few weeks on missions, while managing his free time in between. He even managed to get used to Kisame so fast, there were times he didn’t even notice his presence. He had begun to inform himself gradually about all the other members as well, keeping a collection of files in his mind. He still wasn’t able to find much sleep, despite of the calming silence at night. The only thing he really heard was the quiet chirring of crickets in the distance and the sound of Kisame’s breathing on the other side of the room. Itachi found himself concentrating on the letter’s rhythm, almost like a meditation exercise.  <br/>It took Itachi a second to realize what he was smelling was breakfast and he pushed aside the quickly appearing memory of his mother’s pancakes. He doubted this was Kisame, seeing that the man had mentioned multiple times before that he was horrible at cooking. Walking down the hallway towards the kitchen, Itachi realized he hadn’t really interacted with any of the other members before. Standing in front of the stove, was Deidara. An image of a police file appeared in Itachi’s head. </p><p>Drug Possession</p><p>His long, blonde hair was tied up into a high ponytail, moving with his body, when he swayed to the faint music coming from the radio. Once the chorus came on, he started singing along in a high pitched voice, not at all in the right key. Itachi wondered if he might been tone deaf. </p><p>Drug Trafficking</p><p>Deidara reached into the bowl of blueberries next to him, dropping them into the pancake batter, while eating half of them right away. Itachi stood in the doorframe awkwardly, watching how Deidara began to dance childishly to the massive beat of the song. </p><p>Assault</p><p>On a failed ballet-turn, he finally noticed Itachi. He let his hair flip over his shoulder in an overdramatically way, a thick strand of hair still covering his one eye. The red cloud of the Akatsuki inked on the right side of his throat. It seemed like he was surprised, but he quickly made it appear as if he had known Itachi had been there all along. His smirk was confusingly threatening, one eyebrow raised up slightly. </p><p>Homicide</p><p>“Who do we have here?” <br/>It took Itachi a whole minute to figure out a way to react to this. Stepping a bit closer, he noticed he was actually taller than Deidara, the latter’s physique slim and seemingly harmless. Still, Itachi kept his distance, he knew they technically weren’t allow to kill each other, but he wasn’t going to take his chances. <br/>“Aye, are ya shy?” He cocked his head to the side, like he was talking to a kid. “Name’s Deidara, you’re the newbie right?”<br/>Even though Itachi found the term ‘newbie’ to not be very fitting, seeing that he had already been part of his organization for over a year, he nodded, silently. He barely left his room, when he wasn’t on a mission, essentially to avoid bumping into anybody. He regretted his decision now, to let his curiosity win. The hallway system with the different rooms was a rather odd choice for a base, he had wondered in the beginning why exactly they decided to keep their employees like college students. Kisame hadn’t given him much input about it either (he hadn’t actually asked him about it either) and he wasn’t able to just google it. The question kept scratching at the bag of his head for months and Itachi started to just gather his assumptions about what he thought the use of their living situation was. The fact they everybody had to share a room with their partner was pretty self-explanatory for him. They wanted them to get to know each other and built up a certain level of trust. Their work together wouldn’t be very sufficient otherwise. <br/>Looking at Deidara now, he wondered who exactly his partner was. <br/>“You’re Kisame’s bud right?” <br/>He definitely didn’t like the phrasing of that. Itachi was nobody’s ‘bud’. <br/>Deidara kept flipping the pancakes and stacking them on a plate next to him. The next party entering the scene answered his question whether he was making them for just himself. From the kitchen’s right came Sasori into Itachi’s view. His red hair messily tousled, only dressed in red boxer shorts and a loose fitting white tank top. Itachi recalled the first time he had read about him, sitting on his father’s desk chair and rummaging around in his work documents.</p><p>Robbery </p><p>Sasori yawned, stretching his arms above his head, not having noticed Itachi yet. <br/>“The hell are you being so loud already?”<br/>He reached over to the kitchen counter, taking a pancake and inspecting it suspiciously, before eating it. Deidara only stuck his tongue out, without feeling the need to give a real answer. Together, they looked domestic, almost friendly. </p><p>Aggravated Assault </p><p>Turning his head towards the hallway, the red head finally acknowledged Itachi. Seeing his face from the front like this, made Itachi eye him more closely. He looked young, really young, even though his file specifically said that he couldn’t be older than 19. He didn’t have a clear reaction like Deidara did, not even blinking for the first few seconds of staring at Itachi. It was almost like he could hear the machinery sound of his brain working, trying to figure out who the latter was again. <br/>“The cop kid.” </p><p>Voluntary Manslaughter   </p><p>“Oh yeah right! I totally forgot about that, jeez.” <br/>Itachi started thinking about the best way he could retreat to his room. Leaving, without saying anything would be rude, but then again, why would it matter? Sasori turned towards him completely, a suddenly knowing look on his face. He squinted his eyes slightly, making the brown of them seem darker.<br/>“You have really nice bone structure.” </p><p>Homicide</p>
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